Laure Prouvost
2021If It Was
Laure Prouvost
‘If It Was’ was first commissioned for the fourth edition of DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT − Von den Freunden, a year long exhibition at Haus der Kunst in Munich. The video muses on the museum itself and what it might become.As a montage of image and text continually interrupt each other a voiceover speculates about what Haus der Kunst would be like if it was her museum. What if the angles of the building were all a bit softer? What if one could take the roof off and have palm trees inside?
If It Was
It, Heat, Hit
Laure Prouvost
It, Heat, Hit constructs and propels an inferred story through a fast-moving sequence of written commentary and excerpts of everyday incidents and pictures that have been filmed by the artist. Innocent and pleasing images, such as a swimming frog or snowy street scene, are followed by statements of love and implied violence. These are inter-cut with strange, disconnected images, such as close-ups of flowers, body parts or food. The mood of the film gradually becomes darker and more unsettling, though nothing is stated directly. The growing intensity of the film is reinforced by the oppressive rhythm of a drum which accompanies snatches of music and speech.
It, Heat, Hit
The Artist
Laure Prouvost
Prouvost employs the rhetoric of conventional forms of narration to blur boundaries between the viewers’ perception of the fictional narrative and the reality of the installation. The rhythm and pace of the editing in her films undermines any straightforward attributions of meaning while at the same time retaining an alluring and beguiling quality. Not to be perceived as a ‘set’ but rather a cacophony of film, painting, sculpture, text and sound, the physical elements in the installation of The Artist become the characters for the ‘film’ and the audience faced with so much information, (a dog barking, a voice calling, ‘to look here… no here!’, heavy blankets and paintings suspended from the ceiling dividing the space, a hand pointing at objects), become at once lost, emphatic and inherently part of the work.
The Artist
Swallow
Laure Prouvost
Inspired by the aesthetic and sensuous pleasures of Italy and referencing the genre of panoramic painting, Swallow shows fragments of footage, from birds to women bathing in waterfalls. Exploring language and translation, Prouvost plays on the historic idea of visiting the Mediterranean for inspiration.
Swallow
Lick In The Past
Laure Prouvost
For Lick In The Past, the artist follows a group of teenagers cruising through Los Angeles while nonchalantly discussing dreams and desires, as filtered through their environs. These trance-like confessions and conversations are inter-cut with images of squid and fish, which – together with glimpses of Prouvost’s body and the landscape of LA – form a poetic road movie about the vague promises and wistful possibilities of youth.
Lick In The Past
Stong Sory
Laure Prouvost
A video still life is set to song - Laure Prouvost tells us about a fantastical birthday cake prepared for her brother. Just when you think you've had enough of nearly incoherent, French, sing-songy stories about cake, birds, and paint, something likes this comes along to remind you that you can never have too much of a good thing. Do you remember your kindergarten stream of consciousness?
Stong Sory
They Parlaient Idéale
Laure Prouvost
Representing an escapist journey, both tangible and imaginary, towards an “ideal” elsewhere, They Parlaient Idéale is based on a script co-written by Laure Prouvost and various contributors, in French and English with some Italian, Arabic and Dutch passages. An array of characters are performed by people of different ages and backgrounds with specific performance skills that include magic, dance, and music. The cast recount tales throughout their travels, and find common ground through their shared desire to pursue their individual talents. The featured architectures throughout the group's journey reflect the notion of utopia and the ways in which it has previously been pursued, such as the Tours Nuages of the Cité Pablo Picasso in Nanterre, built between 1973 and 1981.
They Parlaient Idéale
Re-dit-en-un-in-learning
Laure Prouvost
Kunsthal Charlottenborg and CPH:DOX present an exhibition with the French star artist Laure Prouvost, who will open the festival’s first day. Prouvost’s creative and unruly inner universe is expressed through art forms such as sculpture, installation and video - and always with characteristic roots in Prouvost’s own persona. Her brand-new video work ’Re-dit-en-un-in-learning’ is no exception. Here, she welcomes us to a learning centre that multiplies the absurdity of the education system with itself in a nonsensical New Public Management language, which the title also alludes to. With an iPhone video guide at hand and Prouvost as a teacher on the soundtrack, we are taught the relationship between objects and their meaning. A loaf of bread means work. ‘You know that,’ each new topic is authoritatively emphasised. But as soon as you think that it’s the Institution itself that is the object of Prouvost’s anarchist satire, her restless and unruly work changes direction.
Re-dit-en-un-in-learning
